College Life

Private Schools That Are Well Known for This Major

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• Stanford University
• Carnegie Mellon University
• California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
• Cornell University

State Schools That Are Well Known for This Major

• University of California—Berkeley
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• University of Michigan
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• University of Texas—Austin

Classes in the Major

Math. This isn't the math you're used to. Once you get to the level of college math, numbers become a distant, comforting memory. This is mostly about letters, many of which are Greek—mostly to be as confusing as possible—and a variety of symbols doing who knows what. Why will you be subjecting yourself to this? Because programming on computers is basically math. Math is as universal a language as we have been able to devise, and we use it to talk to our machines. Since that's your job, small wonder you're going to learn about it.

Programming Languages. This is when we get to the specifics of communicating with your machines. There are lots of different programming languages. Some are good at explaining certain tasks to a computer, others are good at performing different tasks. Languages also go in and out of style as their relative merits and problems get debated by those in the know. Take this major, and that's you. You're in the know.

You will have to learn about these languages to understand the development of computers. In some cases, you're going to run across old systems and it's a good idea to be able to talk to them. Not literally, but imagine being a time traveler and going back to ancient Rome. That centurion doesn't know what a selfie is. Computers are the same way.

Computer Graphics. These are the most interesting parts of the computer, right? Think of every great game you've ever played. At some point, the graphics were probably praised. If not, the game had to have something pretty special to rise above that concern. The thing about graphics is that they're important for everything. Think about it. Without graphics, you would have no idea what a computer was doing. It would just be a really inconvenient paperweight.

Hardware Design and Implementation. Hardware is all the stuff in a computer that you can actually spit on. That's the easiest way we can think to put it. The confusing thing is that you don't get this kind of hardware at hardware stores. We're still trying to find out who to complain to about that one. In this class, you're learning about hardware, specifically how to design it and how to put it to work. It's the other side of your various programming classes. Here, you're not programming; you're creating a better environment so that your programming can actually function.

Artificial Intelligence. This is the class where you work very hard at ending the world. Just kidding. Well, kind of. A lot of very smart people are warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence. They're talking about the really smart stuff, too, and it doesn't matter if we mean Skynet or GLaDOS; as soon as you give a computer a brain, it decides to end all life on Earth. Hopefully, though, that won't happen in reality. Besides, computers already have the beginnings of artificial intelligence (the bulk of what you will study). If they didn't have AI, they couldn't run any programs.